In Spirit
by Loupee
Summary: When Katniss Everdeen drunkenly steps out into oncoming traffic her life becomes inexplicably entwined with a stranger's. Caught between life and death she finds herself dependent on him for her survival, but she's up against the clock and time is running out. AU set in modern day England. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

This is not the way that I was supposed to die. I never pictured it like this.

A blaring horn, the screech of tires, a flash of light. One drunken argument and its all over? Surely, that's not how it was all supposed to end.

But here I am looking down at myself in a hospital bed and the frenzied activity of the melee of doctors, nurses, wires and tubes surrounding me. Whilst I, myself, viewing it am strangely detached and calm.

I've never spent much time in a hospital before, but I've seen enough TV programmes to know that the flat-lining on the screen beside the bed is a bad sign. I watch them use those paddle things they always do in ER type scenarios to jump-start the heart, but it has no effect.

Is this really the end?

They try again and a tiny blip appears, followed by another and then another travelling across the screen.

It seems I was wrong. I am not dead.

But if that's me lying there in the bed alive, then why am I still standing here watching it all? If I'm no longer a spirit ready to depart my body then shouldn't I have been snapped back into it, isn't that how it works? I'm sure I've seen it happen like that in movies.

Perhaps, it's waiting for me to wake up.

"I've got a pulse, but it's a weak one." I'm not sure where the voice comes from, but it's not from my medical team. Their voices seem to have been drowned out by these new ones. My team, more relaxed since the imminent threat of death has subsided, seem to have taken a back seat whilst these other voices still speaking in urgent tones now seem to clamour for attention in my head.

I cross to the door reaching out to open it, but somehow before I can touch the doorknob I'm already on the other side standing in the corridor. I follow the voices, their urgency growing all the time.

"The impact to his upper leg is worse than thought. We need to get him into surgery immediately."

"Okay lets lift him, on the count of three."

The trolley exits the room with a small team flanking it, they and the oxygen mask almost hiding the body from view.

Slowly following the trolley is a young man, walking it seems in a daze. He's shaking his head, the look on his face one of utter horror. He seems oddly familiar, but I can't place where I know him from. Just a familiar face from round town, one of the pubs or clubs we go to, maybe.

He looks up and when I meet his blue eyes its like being hit by a lightening bolt. My whole body feels like it's being slammed back against the wall at force, although I know my feet have not moved an inch from where I am stood.

I see everything moving in slow motion and a thousand miles an hour at the same time. Rushing through me, an overload to my senses.

"_Piss off Hawthorne and leave me alone."_

"_Come on Katniss, you're wasted let me get you home."_

"_I'm not going any-fucking-where with you, you cheating bastard. Why don't you go back inside and ask that blonde with the big tits I'm sure she'd be more than willing to go home with you."_

"_For-fuck-sake Katniss, just let me walk you to the taxi rank."_

"_I don't need you're help."_

_I shove Gale's arm away as he reaches out for me. I'm not listening to his excuses this time, I saw his hands all over that girl. I turn quickly away from him and stumble out into the road. _

"_Katniss!"_

_I look up to see the headlights coming towards me. There's the blast of a car horn and screeching brakes, through the approaching windscreen a pair of blue eyes terrified as they stare into mine. Then there is blackness, or at least there is behind me, but I turn to follow the path of the green car, lit up now in the darkness as if followed by a spot light. Its front side is dented where it hit me, but it was trying to swerve at the time and now its headed into oncoming traffic. The car coming down the hill in the other direction is going too fast, there's no way they'll be able to stop before they collide. The green car spins and somehow the driver's side is now directly in the path of the rapidly approaching car. And then they meet. There's the sound of screeching tires before an almighty bang, smashing glass, and the sound of screaming. People are running towards them, so many voices filling my head - shouting, speaking rapidly into mobile phones, someone crying. _

_And then in the middle of the chaos, I see one lone, calm figure watching it all as I am. His hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, his blond shaggy hair twitching in the breeze. I watch with him as we wait for the emergency services to arrive and then as they cut his body from the wreckage of his car. I see the tears trickle from the corner of his eyes as he watches them resuscitate him and wheel his broken, bleeding body away into an awaiting ambulance. _

_He turns to me his eyes both questioning and condemning me. _

And then with a gasp I find myself back in the hospital corridor. The other spirit, or ghost, for whatever it is I am - I know he is the same - is gone.

I am alone.

* * *

This story is pretty much finished so I'll probably be updating fairly regularly in little bite sized chunks (perfect for lunch breaks!). Massive thank you to Kismet4891 for betaing this and all her encouragement.

Obviously feel free to visualise _the driver_ any way you want to, but when you find out a little bit more about him I'll let you know exactly who was in my mind when I wrote it.

Feedback and comments always welcomed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's a little summer solstice present for you - have a good weekend.**

* * *

**Part 2**

I tear down the corridor, dashing past people, searching every room but I can't see him anywhere. I can't work out where they took the driver from the car.

I hurry upstairs, running in and out of surgeries seeing things I never thought I would and wished I hadn't. But, he's nowhere.

There's a growing urgency in me and a deepening, sickening feeling of horror that he's going to die.

I need to find him, and I need to find him fast.

"What's the hurry sweetheart?"

The voice is amplified in my head leaving no doubt the question is directed at me, but still I find it hard to believe. No one else can see me. I have walked through doors and walls, reached past surgeons in the middle of delicate operations and no one has batted an eyelid. I am invisible to them all.

But here is a scruffy, unkempt man leaning up against the wall and looking directly at me.

I look behind me, certain there must be someone else there that he is speaking to, but of course there's no one else.

"I said, what's the hurry?" He pushes off the wall and saunters toward me. As he does so, a nurse exits the room beside him and walks straight through him. She gives a shiver, but carries on undeterred.

"Are you talking to me?"

He gives an impatient huff at my stupidity, but says nothing else.

I don't have time for this, I have to find the driver. Something makes me feel that I'm running out of time, that I have to find him soon or it will be too late. I turn to hurry away when the man speaks again.

"You looking for the boy then?" He asks causally

"You've seen him?"

"I might have?"

"Either you have, or you haven't. Tell me where he is."

"Tell me why you need to find him? Boyfriend, brother?"

I shake my head.

"Do you even know what his name is sweetheart?" I shake my head again.

"No. I don't know him."

"Then why the urgency to find him? I can hear you practically screaming inside you're so wound up with anxiety to find him. What makes you so desperate to get to him?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I just know I need to get to him before it's too late."

"Ah right." He says as if that makes perfect sense to him, when it makes none to me at all. "Yeah I guess if he's given up the fight, it won't be long till they come for him."

"What do you mean?"

"First things first girl. You haven't answered my question yet. What is he to you?"

"I … we were in a crash. His car hit me. I walked out in front him." I explain in a rush growing more agitated with every second.

"Oh!" Again it seems as if that explains everything, yet he's not explained a thing.

"Why do you say that? What does it mean?" I snap at him, losing patience.

"You don't get it do you?"

"No! Obviously I don't. So for-fuck-sake just tell me!"

"He killed you, you killed him." He responds matter-of-factly. "You're responsible for each other's deaths. You're tied to each other, nothing you can do about it now. Of course you should both be dead, passing over, bound together for eternity to bring each other misery or consolation for what you both did, but due to the wonders of medical science you're both still alive – for the moment at least."

"What do you mean for the moment?" I press, my desire to find the driver surpassed by my new need to understand his comment.

"This urgency you feel, this dread that something terrible is about to happen is quite just. You either both die together or you both live. There's no in between. So if you're hoping to wake up from this nightmare, you'd better hope you get to him in time. Because if he decides to cross over then so do you."

No way! That is not going to happen. I haven't been brought back from the dead just to die again. I graduate in less than a month. I'm going travelling with my best friend. It's all booked and paid for: Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. I'm supposed to be eating freshly caught seafood in a bikini on a beautiful Thai beach, drinking cold beer and celebrating the start of a new part of my life, not lying six feet under. My sister's coming to visit me before I go. I promised to take her to her first night club. _Shit, Primrose and mum_. Do they even know yet? Are they on their way? What about Dad, is he coming? There's no way I'm going to go without a fight.

"Do you know where he is?" The frantic desperation obvious in my voice.

He nods nonchalantly, seemingly unaffected by growing panic.

God he irritates me, he makes me want to scream, I can practically feel my blood boiling. He just chuckles annoyingly, as if he's completely aware of every inch of my frustration.

"Come on I'll show you."

The room is so full of equipment that the boy in the bed looks quite lost lying amongst it. Sitting in the empty chair beside the bed is a shadow of himself, watching over his battered body. But he's not alone. A figure is bent over him, his ghostly white fingers resting on his shoulder as he whispers in his ear.

"Looks like we might be too late." The scruffy man behind me comments at the sight of them together.

"What do you mean?"

"There's a reaper already at his side. And I'm afraid the odds definitely aren't in your favour today, that's the worst of the bunch. Reapers are supposed to be a neutral party, but once he gets his claws into them they very rarely get away."

"What can I do?"

"Well you can start by getting his attention, pull him out of that reaper's clutch."

"Hey!" I call out, but there's no response. "Hey you." It's as if he can't even hear me. Perhaps he can't, perhaps he's just like everyone else. The reaper doesn't flinch either, but I see his fingers tighten their hold on the driver's shoulders.

A whiteboard hangs on the wall next to the bed with some stats on it, at the top is written _Mellark, P_.

"Mellark!" I shout at him. There's a twitch this time. "Mellark!" I shout louder. "I need to talk to you," his head moves a fraction. "About the accident."

He turns to face me and the spectre at his side turns with him. The creature in his sharp black suit is deathly pale, almost entirely devoid of colour. Except for his lips. When he opens his mouth to speak I see the inside of his lips are a bright crimson red.

"Don't listen to her. She'll feed you lies. She doesn't care about you, she's only thinking about herself. She doesn't care whether you find peace." He whispers into the driver's ear in a silken tone.

"Why don't you let the boy make his own decisions?" The man behind me butts in.

"Haymitch, still stuck here I see. Such a pity you didn't take my offer when you could." The reaper comments with a superior sneer of condescension. His cold eyes then travelling to me, sizing me up and down, and I feel an icy spread of genuine fear grip me.

"Someone's got to give these poor lost souls a bit of a helping hand, they can't all be fodder in your numbers game," Haymitch replies seemingly unfazed by the ghouls contempt. "I'm not planning on going anywhere just yet."

"Really, is that so? Tell me does that girlfriend of yours still manage to visit, or has she given you up as a lost cause?" The reaper's face is quite impassive, but there is an evil amusement in his eyes.

"Thanks for your concern about my love life honey, but you're really not my type. And as interested as you might be in me, we're here to talk about them." Haymitch looks at me pointedly and nods towards Mellark, P.

I've been so desperate to find and talk to him that now I'm here with him, I don't have a clue where to start. I open and close my mouth about half a dozen times before he speaks.

"You're not very big are you?"

"What?"

"You'd have thought you'd be bigger considering how monumentally you've ruined my life."

"I..."

"You're like what - the size 13 year old?"

"What! I'm not that short!"

"Okay 15," he concedes with a look contempt, "yet you single handedly, completely and utterly, ruined my life."

"You're not exactly the only one whose life is ruined. Do you think I want to be here, like this?" I wave at our figures. Looking at him I can see the material pattern of the chair he sits on and the wall behind him. It's like looking through a veil, you can see the images, but they're slightly muted. "Do you think I want to die?"

"Well you are the one who stepped out into moving traffic." He deadpans.

"It was a mistake and I'm sorry, but we don't have to let this happen. You don't have to listen to him." I say looking at the figure in black still standing behind him. "We have a choice, we can wake if we want to."

The reaper laughs, it's a cold hard sound that sends shivers down my spine. "Who told you that? Abernathy? If he has a choice over the matter then why is he still lying unconscious in a room six months after he first fell into a coma?"

I look quickly at Haymitch Abernathy, but he shakes his head. "Just 'cause it's my fate sweetheart doesn't mean it has to be yours. You could still escape here." And then turning to address Mellark he adds, "Don't be in a rush to listen to everything this creep tells you, boy. He's just keen to drag you back with him. You don't have to die yet."

"Who says I want to live."

"Ughh!" I groan as if I've been punched in the gut, as a wave of nausea hits me with force. I feel it coming from Mellark. Despair and misery, disappointment and hopelessness it's all roiling from him, and its potency is over powering. I can feel it dragging me down with him. I feel like I have no reason to want to live. "Why?" I manage to whimper.

"Because you've taken everything I wanted from me. Everything I was just about to achieve. You have no idea what you did to me."

"Tell me." I implore in a desperate whisper, "I need to know."

"All my life, since I was a kid, I've been working towards one goal. To play professional football. I was never much good at anything else, I was rubbish at school. But it didn't matter 'cause they said I had a natural gift. My sports teacher got me a place on the youth squad of a third division team through an old mate of his coach. I was lucky enough to get spotted last year and ended up playing for England under 21's everything was just starting to happen. I was finally proving to those who said I couldn't do it, that they were wrong. And do you know where I was coming back from today? Liverpool. I'd got an offer. I'd made it to the premiership. Yeah I might have been sat on the bench for a while, playing for the reserves, but I was on my way to making it happen. And then you come along. One drunken bitch falls into my path and the whole dream's gone. Just like that. Do you know what they had to do to my leg to cut me from the car? I'll be lucky if I get to keep it, let alone play football. All because of you."

The emotion that hits me during his outpouring is no longer depression and despair, but unfiltered hatred. I find myself glaring back at him with the same depth of feeling. I can feel the heated venom flowing through my veins and I spit it back at him.

"You hit me! I wasn't the one driving the car too fast to stop. You hit me, you killed me. Don't you think I have dreams? I'm graduating next month. Do you know how much that degree cost me? How big my student loan debt is, or how many shitty jobs I've had to work to get by? But I made it. And now I'm going travelling, I'm off to bloody Australia to swim on the Great Barrier Reef for-fuck-sake. I've got a job set up working for my best friend's uncle in his advertising firm in Sydney. It's going to be amazing. I'm not going to die before I get a chance to experience it all, I'm not going let you make me."

"I don't give a toss what you do. You go have your amazing life if you're lucky enough. But who's to say we're ever going to wake up? He hasn't." Mellark nods towards Haymitch. "And if we do, how do you know you won't be stuck paralysed forever or brain damaged?"

"That's not you talking boy, that's him." Haymitch interjects.

"Yeah, but he's right though isn't he? We don't know what will happen when we wake up."

"No you don't," agrees Haymitch, "but you have to have a little faith."

"No." Mellark says, "I don't want to take those odds. I don't want to live if it's like that. I think I'd rather take him up on his offer."

"No please!" I cry in desperation. "Please don't."

"What's it to you what I do anyway?" Mellark asks.

"Didn't he tell you?" Mellark shakes his head at my question, but eyes the reaper suspiciously.

"We're linked. You die, I die. I can never wake up if you don't. We'll be tied to each other for eternity. Isn't that right?" I say turning to the reaper.

He looks royally pissed off with me, for sharing this information with Mellark. But admits the truth with a curt nod.

"And there's more he isn't telling you." Abernathy intercedes. "He knows full well that your spirits are empathetically linked as a result of the accident. That from now on, you will share in every emotion the other experiences - everything - whether its misery or joy, hatred or love. What you feel she'll feel and vice versa."

I hadn't realized the full extent of it when Haymitch had told me earlier in the corridor that Mellark and I were bound to each other. But I know it's true. I sensed it all before as Mellark spoke. His hatred hit me and flowed through me creating my own anger, it's just as Abernathy described. I can feel Mellark's confusion and suspicion in his indecisiveness right now. It gives me hope that his adamant decision to die is faltering, even if it's just a little.

"You know it's true." I say, "You feel it now, don't you? You've been experiencing my emotions during this conversation, just as I have yours. If you accept his offer and pass over, you'll be stuck with me forever and I will never forgive you. You have no hope of ever finding peace because I will never let you forget, not even for one second, how much I hate you."

"Then I guess neither of us will be happy." Mellark responds icily, "Maybe it's worth it to see you suffer."

Any hope I had is quashed. He hates me I can feel it. There's no chance I'll get him to change his mind purely to save my life, I have to find a way to make him do it for his own sake, to make him want to live again. I need more time.

"Please, just give me a chance to see my family one more time." I implore, "Please don't make a decision yet. Don't you have people you want to say goodbye to?"

I'm not sure what the emotion is that I get from him in response. Resentment, hurt, sadness? I can't pinpoint it, but it leaves me feeling hollow and lost.

"I can't keep my offer open forever," the reaper cautions. "I can only give you one more day".

"Please I beg you, please let me say goodbye." I hope he senses my true misery and desperation.

"Okay," Mellsark concedes, "you have twenty-four hours."

I breathe a sigh of relief at my reprieve.

Now, I just need to find a way to change his mind.

* * *

**Notes:**

Just to clarify in case there's any transatlantic confusion. Football in this case means football as in the 'beautiful game' not American football (although I'm sure its very beautiful in its own way) – or soccer not football if you speak American!


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

We follow Haymitch back through the maze of corridors to reach my room. I'm not sure why Mellark comes with us, perhaps tied to me as he is leaves him no choice over the matter. I can sense that he doesn't want to be near me, the loathing directed at me is practically oozing out of him. It's a hard feeling to bear, I've never had someone dislike me so much before, or at least never been aware of it to such an extent. I'm not usually bothered by what strangers think of me, this is the way I am - take it or leave it. But the intensity of his hatred cuts deep, and leaves me full of self-doubt. Simultaneously making me hate him back just as much. I wonder how much of my hostility he can feel, whether in turn it fuels his. Is this what I'm to be doomed to - the two of us caught together in a never-ending loop of mutual hostility.

I see my mum standing outside the room talking to a doctor. Her eyes are red and she's been crying.

"…and we won't be aware to the extent of the damage until she wakes up." The doctor is explaining.

"And when will that be?"

The doctor shrugs her shoulders. "I'm sorry I don't have an answer to that, it's a waiting game I'm afraid."

"But she will wake up?" my mother asks earnestly.

"Again I can't answer that. Honestly, it's a fifty-fifty chance at the moment and it could go either way. The next twenty-four hours are critical, if she makes it through that time frame, then the odds will be much more in her favour."

If only they knew. In the next twenty-four hours the answer will be definite. A decision must be given to the reaper either way.

"Was he drunk?" my mother asks. "The police officer said that witnesses reported the car was over the speed limit and that when Katniss walked out into the road there was no way it could stop in time. But the police didn't know at the time whether the driver was drunk."

"No," the doctor shakes her head. "Blood tests have shown the driver had no alcohol in his system. But your daughter's alcohol levels were extremely high and it certainly fits with accounts that Katniss had been drinking all evening. There's a strong chance it effected her decision making last night and she stepped straight out without looking."

"Oh Katniss." My mother, her hand over her mouth, is trying desperately to hold it together in front of the doctor.

"I'll leave you in peace to see your daughter."

I follow mum into the room. My sister is there sitting by the bedside, her face red and blotchy with tears. My mother moves to hug her, and they both start to cry.

"She's going to be all right," my mother repeats over and over again through her tears. But she can't know that, it's only a hope.

I can't believe this might be one of the last times I see them both, there's so much I want to say but no way of communicating with them.

I suddenly want to share every word of wisdom I have, limited though it may be, with Prim. To tell her that all the stuff she worries about, that seems so important now, will seem insignificant in a few years' time. It doesn't matter if that totally fit boy at school doesn't know she exists because in a matter of years she'll wonder what it was she ever saw in him. To tell all those girls who laugh at her at school for being too _keen_ and getting good grades to get stuffed, because when she's earning a six figure salary she'll be the one who's laughing. I want to tell her she's gorgeous and funny and intelligent and a total pain in the arse and that I love her.

My mother looks down at my battered body and strokes my hair. "Katniss," she sighs helplessly.

"I'm sorry," I choke out, it's hard to say even though I know she can't hear me. "I'm so sorry mum." I find myself remembering all the horrible things I've said to her over the years. All the arguments, not just about my staying out too late, her finding my fake ID, the friends she didn't like, that time I came home totally hammered after a party and threw up all over my bed. But the other arguments started from little trivial things which blew up into full on battles. The resentment that I held, I still do, that it was her fault that dad left us. That she was the one who made him go.

I let loose an uncontrolled sob. _Daddy_. I just want to see my dad one last time. Not a quick phone call from some airport or a two line note scribbled on some hotel stationery, but for him to hold me and kiss me and tell me I'm still his little songbird and that he never stopped loving me. I want him here.

"Is he coming?" I ask, willing her to hear me. "Is dad coming? Did you tell him? If knew he'd come, wouldn't he?"

"Did you hear from dad?" My head whips toward Prim as she echoes my thoughts.

My mother shakes her head. "I spoke to his agent. He's playing at a festival in Germany. I left a message, but I'm not sure whether he'll make it in time."

"Whether he'll make it at all, you mean." I'm shocked by the hardness of Prim's voice.

"I'm sure he'll try Primrose." My mother diplomatically tries to soothe.

"Yeah right. Just like he was going to come to her graduation?" Primrose sarcastically scoffs.

"You know he was going to try, but he had a prior engagement he wasn't sure he could get out of."

"You don't have to lie to me mum, I'm not Katniss. I'm not living under some delusion that he has any interest in spending time with us. You know as well as I do he wouldn't have made it. But don't worry I'm sure he would have sent a nice fat cheque instead."

I hadn't realized Primrose felt that way. How cold she was toward dad. Has it always been like that? Is it just me whose view has been clouded all this time? All the misplaced resentment I felt toward mum all these years, blaming her for throwing dad out, that she was the reason he left. Holding on to the belief he would have still been at home with us if she hadn't told him to leave. When the reality was we were all just holding him back, an inconvenient obligation in the way of his rising career. Once he left home we were lucky to see him once or twice a year and then only if it fitted in with his tour dates.

But I never wanted to admit it, I needed to believe I was still his little girl. His muse, he'd called me as he'd held me on his knee and shown me how to pluck the strings and strum his guitar.

I won't allow myself to believe the worst. He's going to come. He couldn't not come, _could he_? Not if they tell him I'm going to die.

I hear a sniffle behind me and turn to see Mellark. His eyes are red-rimmed, brimming with unshed tears as he wipes his nose on the back of his hand. When he sees me eyeing him and realises what has happened, his jaw sets and he looks cross. He's been hit by my wave of emotion, just as I was by his anger earlier. All the rejection, the wretched heartache, the regret, every drop of sorrow I hold at this moment, he feels it too.

He doesn't want to, I can sense it. Just as he didn't want to follow Abernathy and I to this room, but it seems he has no choice. We are bound to each other where he goes I follow and vice versa. It irritates him, I can feel it and I match his irritation. Even more so when I feel that with this annoyance is also mingled sympathy, and perhaps understanding, for my relationship with my father. Well I don't want or need his pity.

We stand glaring at each other, and I feel the hatred that he had for me earlier starting to creep back in. Only, and I might be imagining it, not quite so forceful as before. Wishful thinking, or not, the fact that I felt something from him aside from anger, even if it was brief, has to be good. I realise too late that instead of standing here encouraging his anger with my own, I should have used his sympathy to my advantage. If he wasn't so full of rage and resentment then I might stand a better chance discovering something inside him that makes him want to carry on. To find what we need for us both to survive.

"Can you take us back to his room?" I ask Abernathy who still stands in the doorway.

"I don't want to back go there!" Peeta blurts.

"Don't you want to see your family?" He wavers, indecisive. But Abernathy has already starting heading down the corridor and I follow hoping that my theory is correct, that Mellark will have no choice but to follow me back to his room whether he wants to or not.

* * *

Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews and to everyone who has favourited/followed this little story, its always wonderful to know that someone is out there reading and enjoying it.

Thanks again to Kismet4891 for betaing this and all her lovely words of encouragement.

p.s. In real life a doctor might not, for legal reasons, be able to tell Katniss' mum whether the driver was drunk or not but this is my AU so in this reality they can because it helps my story!


	4. Chapter 4

Haymitch leaves us at the door and doesn't come in with us, muttering that he'll be back later.

There are no visitors in Mellark's room, just a nurse checking up on him. Perhaps he knew there wouldn't be.

"They have a long way to come," Mellark says, as if in response to my silent thoughts. "It'll take them at least half a day to travel down from Yorkshire."

It's as if on his final word, the name of his home county, that I suddenly hear the accent I hadn't noticed before. Faint, not as strong as a girl on my uni course who came from the same area, but still noticeable.

I realise I haven't really taken much notice of him at all before now. I hadn't even considered how handsome he really is. I can just see him as a sporting pinup, his posters covering the walls of teenage girls across the country, posing in his red Liverpool FC strip. Blond hair mussed up and blue eyes smiling down at them. How long before a good looking, high earning footballer like him bags himself a model girlfriend I wonder. More likely, there's already one training herself up to be a full-fledged WAG, but if that's true then where is she? I can't believe someone who looks like him hasn't got a girlfriend.

"Is there a girlfriend coming?" I blurt the question out without thinking.

He looks taken aback by my question and then shakes his head. "Really?" I'm genuinely surprised.

"Really." He reiterates. I try to read the emotion behind his answer, but whatever it is I don't pick up on any particular feeling of regret.

"No one special? Not a casual thing? No one girl that was hoping to become more than friends?"

"No." He looks confused. "There's no one special. Why the sudden interest in my love life?"

"I'm just surprised, that's all. You're… you know," I wave at his person in way of explanation. "I would have thought you'd have girls crawling all over you."

The corners of his mouth turn up a little. "No. I don't have girls _crawling all over me_, I really don't have time for that. I've been busy concentrating on my career." But then all amusement fades from his face, and a little more wistfully he adds. "Perhaps if I'd know what was going to happen, I'd have been having a bit more fun."

"It's not too late. There's still time."

He staring me like I've just grown a second head. I'm not sure what it is I've said that is so shocking.

"Now?" He asks in surprise.

"Huh?" I don't know what he's on about.

_Oh_!

"God no! I didn't mean that! I meant in the future, I wasn't... you know… offering or anything...I mean, I don't even know if we physically could." I also wonder if it's physically possible for me to blush, because if it is, I definitely am. I don't know what's worse: that he thought I was suggesting we have sex, that he looked so horrified by the idea, or that now it seems to be all I can think about. After all, he's not bad to look at fully clothed, I wonder what he looks like naked. _Shit!_ If that's how I'm feeling then he knows, he can tell I'm thinking about him like that. Oh god, I've changed my mind, kill me now.

I drop my hands from where I had hidden my face to find him looking at me very differently now. I'm suddenly finding it very difficult to swallow, my chest rising and falling with my deepening breath, and I can't take my eyes off him. I can feel the heat of my desire multiplied in him and firing back at me. He's thinking about it too.

He reaches out for my hand. Unlike everything in the living world, his hand doesn't pass right through, instead it feels solid.

"It would definitely be possible." He states, looking up from our joined hands.

This is last thing I should be thinking about right now, the clock is ticking and I'm pretty sure the reaper will be right on time for his appointment. But I don't care, right now I can't think about anything other than how damn hot this Mellark guy is and how much I want him.

His eyes don't leave mine as he takes a step toward me. The closer he gets the stronger I can feel our combined lust, I'm burning up with it.

The door opens behind us and five people effectively walk right through us. A doctor, three men, and lastly a woman. It's like a bucket of ice water has been thrown over us. Mellark drops my hand and follows the little group that has huddled round the bed.

"Has there been any change at all since he came in?" The eldest man that I presume is his father asks.

"No," the doctor shakes his head. "But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Peeta took the brunt of the impact to his right, and there's still some swelling on the brain on that side. But he's stable."

Peter. So that's what the P stands for. I hadn't seen Mellark as a Peter. I'd figured him more of Paul or a Phil, even a Patrick, but I hadn't considered Peter.

_Pee-tah_ the doctor had said, making it sound different, European or something. And when I strain to see the doctor's clipboard his notes confirm it - the spelling is different. Peeta. I've never seen the name spelt like that before and I wonder what its origin is but before I can consider putting the question to him the woman that must be his mother speaks.

"And his leg?" Peeta's mother asks. The feeling that courses out of Peeta in response to her voice, well and truly puts out any of the last lingering flames of our heat.

"Peeta's leg was injured in the crash, but we managed to save it." The doctor says with a certain amount of pride. "Of course we won't know the full picture until he wakes up. Only then will we be able to ascertain the real extent of the damage."

"You mean he might not be able to walk?"

"As I said, it's too early to make a call on that, but it's a possibility we need to prepare ourselves for."

One of the younger men, who looks a great deal like Peeta swears.

"But whatever the outcome his leg will never be the same will it?" his mother says, "It's the end of his career." She doesn't sound sad or pitying, not remorseful even, more like resentful of the news.

Compared to the heat of our earlier exchange of passion, Peeta's emotions are stone cold. It's like ice flowing through me. It shocks me how much it makes me dislike this woman I've never even set eyes on before. It's not like the furious fiery hatred he directed at me, this disdain is unflinching and hard. Almost devoid of emotion, as if he won't let himself feel anything for her.

Peeta turns and leaves the room, not even attempting to open the door. I follow him, knowing now how he must have felt earlier. I'm pulled after him, compelled to follow whether I want to or not. Haymitch was right, we have been truly bound together in our predicament. And if I don't get Peeta to change his mind, we will be tied together like this for eternity.

* * *

**Notes:**

Premier League footballers now earn an average of around £30,000 a **week**. The average **annual** salary for full-time employees in the UK is £26,664.

WAGs (or Wags) is an acronym, used particularly by the British tabloid press, to describe the _wives and girlfriends_ of high-profile footballers, originally those of the English national football team. The term came into common use during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

I have to confess I know very little about football (soccer) and my choice of Liverpool Football Club was pretty random, but afterwards I realized their motto is "You'll never walk alone," which seemed kind of apt for Peeta in this story, and coincidentally their emblem is also a bird (the Liverbird).

Thanks again to Kismet4891 for betaing this and to everyone who has reviewed - sorry I haven't responded its been a hectic week but I promise I do read them all and really do appreciate your comments.


	5. Chapter 5

As I follow him past the nurses' station I see the clock on the wall behind it. It can't be right. I'm not sure where the time has gone. I feel like we've only just left the reaper in Peeta's room in the early hours of the morning, yet according to the clock over half the day has already gone.

I wonder if mum and Primrose are still at the hospital, I wish now that I'd never left my room. There's so little time left and I wish I could spend it with them, but I know that won't help me change Peeta's mind. And I have to change his mind.

We end up heading up some stairs and straight through a fire door onto the roof.

I can feel his mood start to calm as he looks out over the city. You can see for miles from up here. I can clearly see the green treetops of the park and the distinct tower of the university library beyond.

I wonder if any of my friends have been to visit. Whether my housemates, Jo and Madge, or Gale have been here. I feel oddly empty thinking about Gale. Even before last night I knew we were over. We've been together for too long out of a sense of familiarity and complacency, one of us should have had the guts to finish it a long time ago. I'm pretty sure there have been other girls before last night, but I'm not sure that I really blame him. Neither my head nor my heart has been in the relationship for a while. In fact, I don't think either of us has been truly in love with the other for a long time.

I hate to think he blames himself for last night, but I know he will. It would be just like him to be filled with brooding guilt about it. But he didn't force me to drink that much, no one pushed me out into the road. That was all me. I don't want to think his life will be fucked up with this guilt or that my death will always be hanging over him, not about a relationship that was on the way out anyway.

I find Peeta studying me, I wonder what emotions he's picking up from me now. Just sadness, I guess.

I want to ask him about his mother, but I push my curiosity aside. I'm pretty sure that subject isn't going to help me achieve my goal.

But it's him who speaks first, "You're dad, is he a musician or something?"

Great. I choose not to pick the awkward parent conversation and he starts it instead. I nod, "He's a singer."

"Would I have heard of him?"

I shrug, "It depends how into folk music you are, I guess." He looks at me intently, waiting for the full answer. "He's called Myles Everdeen."

Peeta mulls it over, "Did he do that song, the one that got used on the phone advert."

"Yup, that's the one."

"Wow. So is your dad rich then?"

I shake my head. "Not really, he tends to play small gigs and festivals, he's not exactly selling out stadiums."

"And you don't see him much?" I shake my head again. I don't really want to waste my last few hours talking about this. He sighs, and I wonder if my melancholy has settled over him.

"Sometimes it's worse when they don't divorce," he says finally, "when they decide to stick together for the good of the children." His bitterness is palpable, I can taste it. "I'm sure its better to live with one happy parent than two utterly miserable ones."

"Your mum?" Despite my better judgment to open up that can of worms, I just can't help but ask.

He nods, "She stayed out of a sense of duty, but it made her miserable and our lives hell as a result."

"I'm guessing the two of you don't get on so well?"

Peeta shrugs. "She didn't approve of my career choice. Thought I was a chasing a dream and wasting my life. I was just on the point of proving her wrong, but now it looks like she was right. I'm a failure. It was a total waste of time and I've got nothing to show for it. I have nothing else to fall back. Nothing, not a single qualification worth anything. I have nothing left."

"There's a world full of opportunities out there, I don't believe there's nothing else your good at." I can tell he's not swallowing any of my pep talk, but somehow I truly believe my own words. "You don't have to rush into making any decisions**. **Surely you won't be left with nothing_**.**_ You must have had insurance."

"Yeah, but based on my current salary. It's not exactly going to keep me in a life of luxury. Not if I'm going to need extra medical care. I can't stomach the idea of moving back home."

"But to choose death instead? You're not thinking straight. You're depressed, I get that. Your dreams have been ripped away from you just when you thought you'd realized them but it's not a reason to throw it all away."

"So, what? I can be some cabbage, being spoon-fed by my resentful mother for the rest of my days? No way. Is that what you really want for yourself?"

"You don't know that's going to happen. Neither of us do. That's just the reaper trying to scare you. We've got to have some faith. The fact we're here like this, that we're not already dead, it's got to mean something. That there's still some hope left. The odds might not be very good, but at least their not completely stacked against us."

I hope that even a smidgen of my optimism rubs off on him, but I feel nothing coming back from him that gives me the impression it has.

"So what if you can't play football anymore? I don't mean to make light of your loss, but there are million other things you could do."

"Like what?" God I don't know, I can't think of anything right now when I desperately need to.

"Come travelling with me." I surprise even myself with that suggestion. I'm not quite sure why I said it. It was just the first thing that came into my head. He hasn't immediately shot the idea down though, so I run with it.

"If you don't have to spend every minute of the day training and playing you'll have time to travel, see the world. I bet you never had time before, did you?"

He shakes his head and shrugs with disinterest, "Nah, I suppose not. Just the usual boys holidays, you know? Ibiza, Ayia Napa."

"Anywhere you can party, get loaded and laid you mean?" Shit! I didn't mean to be quite so crass. But for the first time I hear him laugh, just a short half laugh, but still it's a laugh. It ripples through me, a delicious warmth, leaving the strangest most wonderful sensation where it has flowed. I've never felt anything like it before. I know I want to feel it again. I suddenly get the feeling that if I could spend the last few hours of my life listening and experiencing the effect of his laugh I would die a happy woman.

He stares at me in wonder. What feeling has he just absorbed from me in return? We seem to be soaking in our new found amazement of the other, reveling in this new awareness. The heat from earlier ebbs back until its fire overwhelms me. Screw changing his mind. That can come later, right now I can't think past how much I want to experience more of him. And I can feel his reciprocating response – he wants it too.

Driven by our twinned desire, I act rather than think. Taking a deep breath I rip my top off over my head, then reach behind unfastening my bra and allow it to drop to the floor.

He lets out a ragged curse. The intensity of his gaze and his need burns inside me. He pulls his t-shirt off and the sculpted sight is better than I'd imagined. It's like whatever we've previously been holding back suddenly snaps and a rush of sentiment surges forward. I'm practically gasping, it hits me so hard.

Then his mouth is on mine, our kisses desperate and savage. Nothing is quite enough. His hands are rough as are mine, fumbling and urgent our fingers tear at the rest of our clothes. Fingers dig into flesh, grabbing, holding, my nails claw at his back as his teeth find my neck. I wrap my legs about him as he lifts me and pins me to the metal air conditioning outlet, it somehow bears our weight, not allowing us to pass through it. I cry out as with one thrust he enters me completely. His hips thrusting against mine deeper and deeper and I cling to him wanting more. I feel his intoxicating pain as my nails pierce the skin of his shoulders, and I cry out as he drives into me harder. The sound of his name doesn't sound like my voice. Although I know it came from my tongue, it seems more animalistic than anything I'm capable of.

I can feel his orgasm mounting, he's trying to fight it but I don't want him to. It feels too good. It feeds my own. He's moaning my name and I know he too can feel my impending climax.

I capture his mouth again, our tongues working together. Like every other part of our bodies, they know exactly what the other needs driving us toward the precipice.

We reach the end together. Escalating toward the peak of our senses at the same time, until I don't know where his sensations end and mine begin. Heightened to an intensity I didn't know could possibly exist. We cry out together in one voice.

Gasping and panting together, his forehead rests against mine. Our bodies slick with each other's sweat. His taste and his smell fill me, as does his stunned awe at what we've just done.

When he finally steps back and lowers my feet to the ground. I feel a loss like I've been split in two. I don't want to lose contact with him. Sensing my wish, or perhaps his own, he pulls me back into his arms before laying us down. We lie looking up into the already darkening sky until the stars blink down at us.

Time is running out and I haven't managed to change his mind yet. He must feel my growing dread. He tightens his hold on me a little as if trying to protect me from my fears, but it's him that I'm afraid of.

Words I never dreamt of saying to a boy before tumble from me, "Please don't leave me." I can't imagine being anywhere without him, not now when we have become one. "If we stay like this forever and never wake up, I don't care. Just please, I want you to stay with me." The tone of my voice and my emotions are desperate, but I don't care. There's no way of hiding it from him anyway.

There's no retreat, he doesn't recoil from my needy plea as I'm scared he might. Instead, I feel a soft, warm, blanketing sentiment envelope me.

"Come on," he says taking my hand. "We've got an appointment to keep."

The reaper is already waiting beside Peeta's unconscious body when we reach the room. Peeta's family have left except for his father who now lies awkwardly asleep in one of the chairs, his broad frame too large to fit comfortably.

Abernathy is there as well, keeping guard over the scene. "So what's it to be then boy?" He asks, "Have you made up your mind yet?"

Peeta nods and I feel my heart swell with hope, as he takes my hand in his. "I think it's worth giving this world another shot, no matter what the odds."

The reaper's face is grim. "I can't promise you such a peaceful end next time." He warns, "If there should be complications when you wake, you will have to endure whatever pain and discomfort comes with them. I will not be able to help you again."

"I guess I'll just have to take the risk," Peeta answers him, "and have some hope and faith."

The reaper says nothing, his face stony and unresponsive. His eyes bore into mine and I shiver, but then I feel Peeta squeeze my hand. I turn to see his blue eyes smiling into mine and the same warm feeling as before wraps itself safely around me. When I turn back to the reaper he is gone.

And then I'm losing the feeling of Peeta's hand in mine. I try but I can't keep a hold of it. I cry out for him again and again, but I can't form a sound.

And then with a jolt I open my eyes to find my mother looking down at me and hear her tearfully exclaim, "Katniss, darling you're awake!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

I'm awake, but I don't want to open my eyes. It doesn't seem fair when I know he hasn't woken yet. But, Jo's persistent voice isn't going to let me continue my languid idling.

"Hey Katniss," I sit up to see Jo jogging up from the sea, I envy her for her lithe, scar free body which is currently barely covered by the tinniest of bikinis.

"So, I'm going to go get a drink with the lifeguard," she says with a wicked grin as she grabs her bag, stuffing her towel into it at the same time. "You want to come?"

"You really want company?"

"No," she smirks and I laugh at her cheek. "Don't wait up!" She adds bounding back down the beach toward the waiting lifeguard, turning half way to shout. "You really should wake blondie up, you'll have no fun whilst I'm out if he's sunburnt."

I roll over on my side to study Peeta asleep on his stomach, his face buried into the crook of his arm. I'd have thought it hard for him to get much blonder than he was, but the Australian summer sun has bleached him even fairer. I stroke my fingers through his wayward curls stiffened with sea salt before lightly stroking down to his shoulders and the shiny smooth skin of the scar he sports there, one of the many souvenirs of our accident. I press a kiss to it before working my way back up his neck, the baby fine hairs there are almost white against his tanned skin. I tease them with my tongue before tugging slightly at them with my teeth.

He gives a muffled protest before catching me completely off guard by pulling me to him, rolling us over and pinning me underneath him in one fluid motion.

I raise my eyebrows as I laughingly scold, "Peeta! In case you haven't noticed we're on crowded beach."

He sighs rolling off to my side, readjusting his shorts, "Believe me, I'm totally aware of that fact."

"We could head back to the flat?" I suggest with an innocent smile. "It looks like Jo's going to be out all evening." His frustrated pout is instantly replaced by the beginnings of a satisfied smile.

"Here," Peeta says, handing me an ice-cold bottle of beer as he joins me on the balcony. The view over the city towards the harbour is amazing at this time of night, when the sun is just starting to dip in the sky. Jo and I would never have been able to afford the rent on a place like this without Peeta. I can't believe he was once worried about being broke and needing to move back in with his parents. He'd forgotten one vital bit of information. He'd already had the club's offer in writing before the accident. The lawyer he hired managed to put together a strong claim that Peeta's loss of income should be based on his new salary, as would have been with his new team. The resulting payout from the insurance company wasn't thousands, it was millions.

At the insistence of his lawyer we had to keep a tight lid on our relationship. I was after all the _guilty_ party who stepped out in front of the innocent driver robbing him of his hard earned future. I had a tough time acting that our relationship was merely what it should have been - just two strangers, with no other connection but the crash - it too closely mirrored my own fears of those early days.

Waking up to the tearful, relieved reception of my family I had been confused and disorientated. My dream had seemed so real, yet too absurd to be true. I begged them to find Peeta, frantic to know he was alive and whether he had woken too. They convinced me it was all just a vivid dream induced by the concussion and eased my agitated state with a sedative. It wasn't until I woke the next day, after troubled dreams of white-haired monsters luring Peeta away, that I found out he too had regained consciousness. The nurses told me he'd been placed on heavy pain relief for his injuries which left him drifting in and out of lucidity. His family claimed his waking moments were filled with nonsensical rambling.

My friends and family visited, but I still had too much time alone to dwell on my thoughts and fears. I was scared he wouldn't remember me, that it really had been nothing more than a dream, because to me it all still felt incredibly real. I wasn't sure which option felt worse, never seeing him again or meeting him only to discover that he didn't know me as anyone but the stranger he hated for ruining his life.

It was over a week before they let me out of bed. I convinced Primrose, on a rare visit to hospital by herself, to wheel me to his room. He was alone, but I was too afraid to go in. I spied on him, the right side of his face bruised and battered as he watched TV, trying to pick up any sense of his emotions, but there was nothing. I had no special link to this person other than the one I'd imagined. Feeling wretched I'd asked Primrose to take me back to my room, but he'd looked up then and on seeing me had called out my name.

Primrose had wheeled me to his bed and swiftly excused herself. Peeta and I were left staring at each other, both too afraid to voice what we worried sounded like madness. But when he reached out a hand and I took it, I felt it. That same soft warmth that had settled on me before, filling me with a genuine sentiment of being cared for. And then he'd simply stated, "I remember everything."

We spent every chance we had over the following days getting to know the real us. It was hard to separate after that, but Peeta needed to stay in the hospital longer than me and during our rehabilitation we each had no alternative but to return to our family homes.

Jo was completely understanding about the need to postpone our trip until I was fit enough to travel. We backpacked across New Zealand before heading to Thailand. There we took in a few Buddhist temples, but mainly we just sat about on the beach and took what I felt was a well-earned rest. Then we came here to Sydney to work in Jo's uncle's firm as we'd always planned.

Peeta joined us here three months ago. We got a bigger apartment when Jo complained the walls in the last place were too thin. Serves her right I reckon, I've had years of listening to the sounds of my flat mate's bedroom exploits.

Standing behind me now on the balcony, Peeta slides one arm loosely round my waist as he lowers his mouth to my bare shoulder. My warm skin pricks with goose pimples at the touch of lips, chilled by the beer.

"I love this dress," he murmurs against my neck. I smile to myself, I know he does, it's the reason I changed into it. He's mentioned more than once how he admires the amount of skin the low backed halter neck exposes, that and the fact I never wear a bra with it.

His fingers trace the outlines of the scars that line one side of my back. I was reluctant to let him see them at first. When we'd been together on the roof our bodies had been blemish free, devoid of all the earthly damage caused by the accident. But Peeta made me see they were a symbol of our survival and a result of destiny throwing us in each other's path. Besides, he claims they match his own. It's true when we lie together, facing in each other's arms, the scars seem to join. The marks on his right shoulder continue connecting to the ones on my left before travelling down my back to create one long unbroken map of our skin. As if they had been made whilst we embraced.

I take a long deep swig of my beer before setting it down and turning in his arms to face him. I brush a rouge curl away from his eyes, his hair still damp from our shower. I feel my skin heat at the thought of us, glad that Jo was out and I won't have to suffer her sly comments about the sounds from earlier that seemed to amplify and echo in the tiled space of the shower.

I admit I was scared that after the experience on the hospital rooftop, sex would be disappointing in comparison. Peeta and I no longer share the same extreme empathy we had during the twenty-four hours at the hospital, and we are left to try to interpret and guess at the other's emotions just like any other couple. But we soon discovered the physical connection remained just as strong. Perhaps not quite as wildly out of control, savage as we were that day, but enough to break two headboards and cause Jo to hammer on the wall to 'shut the fuck up, we're scarring her innocent mind forever'.

Peeta finishes his beer and places it down on the table before slowly reaching to undo the knot where the dress ties at the back of my neck. I let his hands skim over the material dragging it down until the dress falls about my ankles. I bite my lip trying to reign in my grin as he swears at the discovery that I didn't put any underwear on after our shower and now stand before him completely naked.

We don't make it to the sofa, instead we crash down on the carpet, our hands shedding his clothes. My fingers pull at his hair, holding him to my breast as he roughly sucks me into his mouth. His moan is muted by my flesh as my nails create marks of their own to join the ones on his shoulders after he bites down on me.

I desperately urge him on as my body arches under his tongue, his pace agonizingly slow as it moves down my torso toward its goal between my legs. Begging and praising him with each passing stroke across my slick centre, crying out when he sucks then bites down on the hard bullet of nerves. Persisting in his determined cycle of torment until I can stand it no longer, demanding him to give me what I want.

His hands grip my hips, dragging me to him and hastily raising my ankles to his shoulders as he thrusts deeply inside with a growl that reverberates through my entire being. The sounds of our connecting flesh and impatient desire fill the room as each time he drives a little harder taking us closer and closer to completion. A gloriously pained cry of fulfillment comes from us when with shuddering breath we reach the end together.

I allow him to roll my lifeless, panting body with his to lie side-by-side facing each other. His kisses are gentle as he strokes the length of my arms and I reach up to brush his cheek with my fingertips, smiling into his blue eyes.

"I love you," he tells me softly.

"I know," I contentedly smirk back in response. Unimpressed he nips softly at my neck in a way he knows tickles the hell out of me. "I love you, too." I admit, quickly halting his attack.

Jo and I only have a few more months left on our Australian work visa and then we'll all be heading back to the UK. Our jobs have given us some great work experience that I hope will give us a head start in the job market, but we'll have to wait and see as its pretty tough out there at the moment. Peeta hasn't quite made up his mind what he wants to do, but I know he's swaying toward following in his father's footsteps, back to his first love before he found football. His family owns a bakery up in Yorkshire and Peeta has told me stories of how his father taught him to bake as a child. He's been practicing his recipes out on us, and he truly is an incredible cook, so much so Jo and I had to join a gym to counteract the carb overload. I think if it's the path he decides to take, his skill and his dogged determination to achieve what he wants will ultimately mean he'll be a success, but again we'll have to wait and see what the fates have set in store for us.

I have to hope that they continue to favour us, because so far it seems that they have chosen to smile on us, yes there are scars that will never fade and there are days when the ache in Peeta's leg bothers him more than he tries to let on, but otherwise we are fit and healthy and _we are alive_.

And what I do know is that whatever happens, whatever we decide to do, it will be together.

* * *

So that's the end - I hope you enjoyed this short little story, but there's another one just starting up called **Priceless** so go check that out.

Thanks to everyone who left reviews - it really is the only way for me to guess whether there's anyone out there actually reading/enjoying the story - so I really really do appreciate them no matter how short.

Thanks again for Kismet4891 for all her betaing and encouragement.

And who did I have in mind for footballer Peeta, well I'm English so there's really only one option. Beckham of course - only more early 1990's when he was all cute and boyish, with floppy blond hair and a lot less tattoos - but Posh was definitely **NOT** Katniss!


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